Mou Zongsan and Martin Heidegger： Reopening a Debate on Ontology and Ethics

In this paper I investigate differences and similarities in the definitions of human being and human essence as proposed by two of the most influential thinkers of 20th-century world philosophy, namely Mou Zongsan and Martin Heidegger. I first examine a number of interpretations put forth by scholars that assess the philosophical compatibility of the thought of the two philosophers. Each of these assessments tend to agree that they are incompatible with each other based on what they perceive as an absolute distance between Mou＇s and Heidegger＇s ways of thinking. Although these studies are pioneering and show an in-depth understanding of Mou＇s thought, none demonstrate a correct understanding of Heidegger＇s philosophy. Therefore, I will attempt to demonstrate that, despite their differences, the ontological and ethical theses of Mou and Heidegger have several striking points of contact. I will also put forth the claim that Heidegger＇s post-turn philosophy is more compatible with Mou＇s philosophy than Kant＇s system.

Reason and Besinnung. Heidegger＇s Reflections on Science in Contibutions to Philosophy

Heidegger＇s reflection on modem sciences in his Contributions to Philosophy is a ＂questioning of philosophy＂ instead of an analysis of a ＂problem of logic.＂ Therefore, this Being-historical reflection is an ontological grounding effort of reason, instead of a rational critique of the sciences. Heidegger calls this ontological grounding a ＂Besinnung＂ or ＂mindful deliberation,＂ which is one of the most important words in the Contributions. This ＂Besinnung＂ is not only a kind of＂philosophy of science,＂ but also a political critique of modern sciences,

Heidegger,Communal Being,and Politics

There are two critical,but opposite interpretations of Heidegger's understanding of being as a social ontology.One charges Heidegger with adhering to an anti-social"private irony,"while the other charges him with promoting a"self-canceling"totality.The current essay replies to these two charges with a discussion of Heidegger's understanding of being as"communal being,"which is implicated both in the early Heidegger's concept of"being-in-the-world-with-others"and in the later Heidegger's keyword of Ereignis.It argues that Heidegger's understanding of being as communal being is neither identical with totalitizing publicness nor the same as voluntaristic egotism.According to Heidegger,both the publicness of das Mem and voluntaristic egotism are the real threats to humanity at present.Because of them,we human beings are in danger of being uprooted from the earth upon which we-as communal beings-have already and always dwelled and lived with others from the very beginning of human history.

Heidegger on the Struggle for Belongingness and Being at Home

In 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville coined the term ＂individualism＂ to refer to the tendency for Americans to withdraw into their own desires and interests, thus weakening and diminishing the ＂habits of the heart＂ that bind a generation to the customs of their forebears and contemporaries. A problem, though, is that modem individualism undermines the very ideals--i.e, autonomy, equality, and freedom--that motivated it in the first place. Understood as a way of life, liberal individualism is permeated by alienation, estrangement, and thoughtless patterns of conformism. In what follows, I hope to show that hermeneutic phenomenology as developed by Martin Heidegger marks an important break from the modem liberal individualistic outlook. The point is to undercut the contrived interpretations of our current historical tradition in order to demonstrate that belonging to and sharing in the struggles of a generation are conditions for being human at all. This critique does not provide a panoptic or definitive account of the basis of a genuine community, but does give us a richer sense of place and purpose, beyond even what the current polis/political community designates （though it certainly includes it）.

The Marginality of Phenomenology

The essence of Husserfs intentionality does not lie in any object,but in the marginal horizon presupposed by intentional acts.This characteristic can be seen whether on the level of intensional act or that of noema(intentional object).The reason is that all intentional act and noema come from the stream of internal time consciousness,and thus have Zeithof(time halo or time aureole),while the original meaning constituted by such a halo is prior to the object they are concretized into,and the noema that contains the possibility of meaning will also be intuited together with the perceived adumbration.Using Husserl9 s idea that the meaning of non-objectification is prior to the object,Scheier breaks through HusserPs dogma that the presentation of an object must precede the giving of value to the object,and thus puts forward the new train of thought that the feeling of value is not later than the objectification,or even prior to it.Heidegger deepens and expands the sense of the marginal horizon,revealing in all human behaviors and world presentation such an ontological structure,that is,halo-like meaning or the act of Being itself precedes objects and beings created by the separation of subject and object.Maurice MerleaPonty states that the body field is prior to the separation of body and mind,and the body's perception of external phenomena is first carried out in the manner of field rather than definite objects,therefore,it must have the original ambiguity and be realized in the fonn of body schema instead of a causal chain.So,the philosophical vitality of phenomenology does not significantly lie in the explanation of the levels and functions of intentional objects,but in the construction premise of such objects,namely,the spatio-temporal halo manifested as marginal horizon,time stream,and the displaying of existential vista.

Hunger, World, the X: On Ghosh and Miller's Thinking Literature Across Coltinents

This essay constitutes an unorthodox response to Ranjan Ghosh and J.Hillis Miller's Thinking Literature Across Continents:instead of attempting to conventionally engage with a text that challenges the idea of any unitary totality as a whole,I opt instead to dwell on the interplay between language and silence in three different sites of inquiry within the text:the first concerns the question of hunger,for which I take as my starting point Ghosh's own starting point in the first chapter of the book,namely Rabidranath Tagore's reflections on a brief episode on the river Ganges.I excavate the transcontinental provenance of these reflections for western,particularly Kantian,aesthetics before I focus on two aspects within the episode that such a framing misses or remains silent about:the paradoxical tendency of material satiation to demote the importance of hunger(as paradigmatically exposed in Brecht);and the indeterminacy of the kind of hunger that is involved in the boatman's response within Tagore's text(as evidenced by prehistoric cave paintings).Finally,I demonstrate the importance of taking these complications into account when reading Ghosh’s own extensive interest in foregrounding hunger within the literary phenomenon and its hermeneutic reception.In the second part of the essay,I dwell on Ghosh’s critique of prevailing notions of“world literature”in the fifth chapter of the book by demonstrating the ontological(Heideggerian)rather than empirical meaning of world in his writing,and,by extension,the subtractive and absence-centered meaning of what he calls the“more than global.”Finally,I turn to J.Hillis Miller’s reading of Wallace Stevens’s“The Motive for Metaphor”in the fourth chapter as an exemplary site for the exploration of the interface between poetics,hermeneutics and ontology that is central to Ghosh's theory of the literary,and thus serves to highlight,in Miller's very engagement with the failure of language as an issue of concern in the poem,the possibility of dialogue between the two critics:indeed,as I show,Stevens’s figure of the“X”serves both as a signifier of the ineffable and as one for criss-crossing,for the“across”involved in“thinking literature across”authors,continents and traditions.